Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology at the University of Southern California, will present her lecture, “Weaving a Colorful Cloth: Toward a Humanistic, Neurodevelopmental Science of Civic Engagement for Social Justice.”
The proclivity to think and feel deeply about complex social issues is a hallmark human achievement—a foundation of global society as well as of personal growth. This achievement rests on capacities for transcendent thinking, that is, on a person’s abilities and dispositions to consider the broader ethical and systems-level implications that transcend situations and pertain to bigger ideas, values and identities. In this talk, Dr. Immordino-Yang will discuss her transdisciplinary, longitudinal studies of young people’s civic meaning-making, purpose, identity development and brain development, reflecting on why and how college-age youth can be among society’s most visionary citizens, and how educational institutions can support and empower them.
Speaker Bio
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (Ed.D., Harvard University), Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology, is a professor of education, psychology, and neuroscience at the University of Southern California and founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education (candle.usc.edu). Her work pairs in-depth qualitative interviews with longitudinal brain imaging and psychophysiological recording to reveal coordinated mental, neural, and bodily processes by which adolescents and their teachers build meaning—deliberating on the abstract, systems-level, and ethical implications of complex information, social situations, and identities. Her research underscores the active role youth play in their own brain and psychosocial development through the narratives they construct, and capacities teachers cultivate to support student belonging and deep learning. She conducts her work in partnership with expert educators and diverse youth from the low-SES communities where she works. She writes and speaks extensively on the implications for redesigning schools around curiosity and civic reasoning to promote intellectual vibrance and thriving. She is the author of Emotions, Learning and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience, published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2015 and translated into five languages.
